Monday, February 21, 2011

I can’t believe that is really happened! After our last celebration service on Sunday, around 1:15, we started the infamous “HD Upgrade.”

The entire video booth’s equipment and racks and wires had to be torn out. Four screens and projectors in the balcony came down. Cameras in the front row were dis-assembled and removed, screens in the front of the room were also taken down.

New cable had to be run from the video booth, down a level, and the complete length of the auditorium under the floor to the back of the stage, with connections along the way for cameras. Platforms were built to accommodate the new cameras that needed to be set up. New 10 foot by 18 foot screens installed in the front of the room and the projectors for them relocated. The entire video room had to be completely built up from the floor, literally. Going as far as drilling through the concrete floor, installing new racks, countertops, and all brand new equipment. Our very own network switch even had to be installed. And that isn’t event the amazing part!! The amazing part is it was up and operational by the next Saturday night’s celebration service!! Six days, all that (and more I probably don't even know about) in just six days!

We were all under the direction of CSG, who were the most phenomenal guys to work with, and were helped by the best volunteers in the world. It was one of the most unbelievable things I have been privileged to watch and take part in ever! This was another fantastic God moment in the life of Vineyard Cincinnati!

Look out world we have now entered into the world of HD!! I can't wait to see what God has in store for us next!!

Monday, February 7, 2011

We are finally taking a leap into the 21st century with our video equipment at church. We started stripping the video booth completely, taking everything out of the room in preparation for the new equipment to be installed. The picture you see is just some of the wiring that what was behind the existing equipment. Needless to say this is a super huge project, and it all has to be up and running by Saturday!

To reminisce about some of our fun, and so we don't forget how lucky we are....our robotic cameras have recently taken on a life of their own and would decide to just not work when they wanted to. Whether they were live on the screens or not didn't seem to matter to them. We have had to change the inputs for cameras 1&2 to input 3&4, then to input2&3, and have had to reboot them in the middle of a celebration. There have been a lot of stories about these little gems, more than you probably want to read about here. Yes robos, we will miss all that fun together.

For months now we have had to have a fan running constantly on the floor to keep the switcher cool so it wouldn't decide to shut down. Most of us have had to endure frozen toes just to keep the switcher switching. Ah the sacrifices! ;-)

We have lived with wavy monitors that made people look contorted and folded over at the top. One camera that would show a red shirt, another that would say it was pink, and yet another that might decide was purple instead. We would record in three different medias (yes all three were different formats too) to ensure we had a 'keeper' for the archives, and the web.

It has been fun doing a weekly juggling act wondering what surprise was in store for us this weekend. Needless to say we were in desperate need of a change. I mean how many people are using camera that were purchased 12 years ago, and some of ours were already used!

So this week we officially say good-bye to analog and hello high definition! We will miss all all the old stuff. We had even started giving them names, that is how close we were to them. As luck would have it this is my weekend to direct, so my team and I get to officially break in the new equipment.